A Revolution Interrupted – Blaine
There were only three days before the revolt against the Elite government. Yet I didn’t feel the spark of anticipation. I just felt a dull throbbing. It had been stupid of me to lose my temper like that. Now Julia was probably never going to speak to me again. She was probably gone for good. I had never been so alone. What was I going to do?
You could try apologizing.
My gut was always right. I knew I had to. It wouldn’t be easy.
However, what was right and what was easy battled for dominance in my brain, and what was easy won out. Without thinking, I drove and parked in the same spot the day I had found the special spot. I walked to the wall, keeping my eye peeled. When I found it, I struggled through, relishing my freedom. I was willing to risk it, and made a break for it, running faster than I ever had before, my legs carrying me tirelessly across the empty land. This was it. I had made it out, all by myself. In an instant, the nagging doubt evaporated, and I felt freer, more than ever before.
Then, all of a sudden, my foot caught on something. I only fell for a split second before crashing to the ground, landing hard on my shoulder. Stunned, I rolled onto my back, feeling the pain arc through my body. As I came to my senses, I was aware of a faint ringing noise. At first I thought it was just in my head, but as it grew louder, I realized it was headed toward me.
Seconds later, a bright beam was shining in my face. The ringing was an alarm, louder and louder.
“Stop right there!” A megaphoned voice came to me. “Yes, you. Put your hands where we can see them, drop any weapons.”
Then I did a stupid thing. Instead of obeying, I took off. The noise pursued me, and before I knew it, a throw net had come down on top of me. I thrashed around like a fish, becoming even more entangled. A huge helicopter, covered in metal plates, descended half a minute later, blowing dust everywhere. I was sure it had gone into every cavity in my head. Men in army uniforms jumped out and ran toward me. I made one last bid for freedom, but the men had lifted me and the net off the ground and were carrying me toward the helicopter.
Once they had made it inside and had disengaged me from the net, they bound my wrists behind me and pushed me into a windowless compartment, the door sealing instantly. I fell hard, having no arms to catch me.
I laid there for a couple minutes, feeling the helicopter take off. I struggled to sit up, the rough ropes digging into my skin. The walls, floor, and round ceiling were all metal-plated like the outside. So was the door, which looked impossible to break down.
I was trapped. How had I have miscalculated so badly? Of course there were trip wires. Of course they were attached to a complex alarm system. Julia had been right. I shouldn’t have tried. What had I been thinking?
After what seemed like forever, the helicopter touched down, bumping once on the ground before stopping. The door opened with a hiss, and two men entered, their faces never changing expression as they jammed their rough hands under my arms and pulled me up. One of them whipped out a blindfold and tied it tightly over my eyes. They pushed me in front of them, only stopping to lift me out of the helicopter.
It seemed like after a good amount of pushing and grunting that they finally stopped. The blindfold came off, and I found myself at a heavy metal door, a hallway behind it sloping down into the ground. One of the men pricked his finger and smeared the bead of blood on a sampler before sliding it in a slot. The door hissed open, and the men led me down a set of wide stairs.
We came to a long gray hallway, lined with some of the same metal doors. One man took the lead, and the other one brought up the rear to make sure I didn’t escape. The three of us arrived at a door at the very end. The lead man took out a ring of large rusty keys, and shoving one into the keyhole, pushed the door open. The one behind me unbound my wrists, but pushed me into the cell, socking me in the mouth to knock me over.
I spat the blood out of my mouth and attempted to stand up, but stars exploded in front of my eyes as he clocked me again. I felt my arms pulled up behind me and shoved into shackles. A distant boom sounded like a clap of thunder in my mind, and as I came to my senses I realized I was trapped, my wrists shackled to a ring above me, blood dripping off my chin, and my eye swelling up fast.
What have I done?
End of chapter
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140,766 Literary Works • 673,687 Reviews
Hey, rocket!
So, it has been quite some time since I last read anything from your novel here, but I did go back a reread some of the parts and I believe when it was last left off, Blaine had just found a way to break through. But now it's already time for the revolution? Major time skip or what? Oh, now that I think about it, Blaine had wanted to get it started early, which seems far too rushed, considering he can't take on the entire capital alone. And it just has a strange feeling like something was brushed over, so maybe tighten up the transition between this chapter and the last.
Well this suddenly took a dark turn. It was interesting seeing all the precautions these guards have done to make sure no Commoners will escape, but I really wonder why? I don't feel like this is explained enough as to why they'd care if Commoners left or not. It can be assumed they they are the main labor force, doing everything work related while living in the slums, but is there another reason? What are the laws revolving around this? Are there any? There sorts of things around world building are kind of important.
Now thinking about how they reacted to Blaine trying to escape, how come he's easily able to make it into the Elite area and talk wit Julia sometimes? Wouldn't they have the same precautions to keep Commoners out of the Elite housing and town area? These two details don't really add up. It would make sense they'd have security with the Elites, but it should be more intense, like now, to keep the Commoners out.
I like how here there's a little more description, going more into the senses on what Blaine is feeling, but there seems to still be things missing. For instance, we don't see much of a reaction from Blaine. Yes, he's anguished, he's upset for getting caught and feeling remorseful for doing this without thinking anything through, but we don't feel his emotions really about getting caught. Is he scared for what they'll do to him? Is he angry to the capital for doing this? Is he shocked he got caught so easily? How was he feeling during most of the plane ride? Were his emotions constantly tearing at him? These things are important in characterizing Blaine so that we know how he reacts and can start to empathize with him more.
Teeny thing that I noticed is there seems to be a lot of the same phrases used over and over again. I recommend that you try to spice up your vocabulary and broaden your descriptions. Maybe try going more in-depth in certain spots and try to make Blaine's thoughts come to life. Bu what I'm talking about earlier is overusing phrases, such as 'the door hissed open'. I recall that was used two or three times throughout this, so be careful for unnecessary repetition!
One final thing before I end this review is that I feel like everything is really rushed here. There isn't much time taken during the helicopter ride really show us how long it is and get into Blaine's head. Try to draw things out more and lengthen all this, because this is pretty short and a ton happens.
Though, I did like this chapter and it was one of your better ones, drawing out the actions more and having a better flow. I'm off to the next part! Happy Review Day and Keep on Writing,
~Wolfare~
Hi! Cricket here for a review!
I'm glad I came back to see Chapter nine. This is definitely better than Chapter ten, actually. Here, we could tell that there is a different POV at work and this POV was something that was super unique. Even though, he messed up and created a big mess out of things, I still like him. He has that feel to him that says that he's not going down without a fight. Granted, he just went down and in the next chapter he's a bit dis-spirited, but I know that's not going to hold him back for long. He's a fighter; that much we can tell. And I reaaally hope he gets something done while he's in prison. This just might be the opportunity that he needs. Keep it up on his character. I'm loving it.
In this chapter, there is very few grammatical errors and everything seems to flow nicely, so this review might not be so long when it comes to being helpful.
This needs a bit more meat. Explain to us more how he had never felt so alone. Try and give us some more detail on what Julia means to him. Right now it seems empty and devoid of emotion, because there's no expanding on the individual emotions. So yeah, don't be afraid to go into his different emotions and try and work out why he feels so alone. It's always best to overdo it, instead of not doing it enough. You can go back and edit out unnecessary stuff, but it's waay harder to put information in later on when it's not fresh in your mind.
I would have preferred to see a bit more detail here, as well. How about going into how he feels stunned? Explain how he physically feels. How does his head feel? Just go more into it. We need to feel him being stunned above all else right now.
Comma after yet.
This is a pretty silly nitpick, but I figured I'd mention it anyway. Since hard and arms rhyme, they seem a bit redundant upon reading it. I'd suggest getting rid of arms and just change the entire sentence around to: I fell hard, having nothing to catch me or break my fall. Eh?
Great closing line here. Excellent work.
Sorry, that this review is so short, but there really isn't much else to critique here. Just work on expanding more on the characters thoughts and emotions and you'll be doing good here.
Again, I apologize for the shortness. Hope this little bit helps you, in some way or the other.
Keep writing!
~Cricket
Salutations.
This is a fabulous piece of writing. There are very few language errors, the imagery is sufficient, and already, I have an idea of what this character is like, so your characterisation is excellent as well.
Ah, the ever-continuous battle between these two concepts. It is a sad truth that what is right is never easy, and just as often, what is nice is also bad. However, one can learn to do what is right more easily if one has has enough practice. Nevertheless, there will always be instances when doing what is right will be difficult, even to the saints among us. Sadly, your character came nowhere even close to doing the right thing, as is made obvious here.
I cannot understand why this character is so shocked. Often, we know that if we do something, there will be consequences, yet we stupidly go and do it anyway. The frequency with which we do things without proper judgement is astonishing. However, in your character's case, the best answer to his question, "What was I thinking?" is this: he wasn't.
Unfortunately, I do not have much sympathy for this protagonist of yours. If he wants to play with fire, he should not be shocked to find his hands burned, and healing the resulting wounds are a very painful and lengthy process. To imagine that all of his new problems could have been prevented had he simply shown stronger strength of will. Oh well.
Thank you for showing humanity one of it's many faults. I only hope some people actually respond to this message... Nevertheless, I wish you a happy Review Day, and may your judgement be better than that of your character!
Thanks for the great review! Yes, I don't have much sympathy for Blaine either, now that I think about it.
Well, I've never read the other parts, but I decided I needed to review something and found myself here.
And I have to say I'm glad. Even though I have no idea what's going on, I still found this very entertaining. I enjoy your writing style, but I would suggest that you read over some of your sentences; a few of them are rather choppy. But this one is the only one I had a real problem with.
I hope I find myself reading something else of yours again.
The ringing was an alarm, louder and louder. (Maybe instead of 'louder and louder' you should put 'and it kept getting louder and louder')
Away from that though, this is a really great story.
Bye for now!
~BookWolf